Teacher who accessed child sex slave forum was 'bullied at work'

An Adelaide primary school teacher produced written material about child sexual abuse while pretending to be a teenage girl on an internet chat site, a court has been told.

Grant Geoffrey Martin, 45, pleaded guilty to two charges of producing child pornography, one of them aggravated.

The District Court was told that between June last year and February this year, Martin pretended to be a teenage girl on an online child sex slave chat site and produced written pornographic material about children.

Police seized computer equipment from his home and found more than 3000 chat logs from the online forum, 68 of which featured child exploitation material he had written while making out he was a girl as young as 13.

At the time of his arrest in February, the Education Department suspended Martin and notified parents at the eastern suburbs school of the charges.

He was sacked a month later.

Martin's lawyer Stephen Ey told the court his client played the role of a victim on the chat sites to escape real-life issues with his gender, alienation and bullying at work.

"He didn't get any sexual gratification from this. It was designed to help him escape the world he was in," Mr Ey said.

"As a young teenager himself, he felt he was a young female trapped in a young man's body.

"In his employment, in all those years that he worked, he only went to three social functions, so he has clearly felt alienated and lonely in his social life."

Mr Ey said Martin suffered from paranoia, insecurity, obsessive behaviour and problems with authority, but has become much happier since starting his own handyman business.

"He had issues with the Education Department, he felt victimised," he said.

"Clearly his personality didn't fit well within the teaching community. Whilst he tells me he was a good teacher and he was well regarded... he's in a much better place now."

He also said Martin did not realise his behaviour was criminal.

"He told police he didn't know his actions constituted criminal activity. Clearly he understands the offending is serious but having said that it is not as serious as if he was possessing images of child victims," he said.

Mr Ey said given Martin's personal circumstances and the unusual circumstances of the offending, the court could be lenient and suspend any term of imprisonment it might impose.

Further sentencing submissions will be made next month and Martin will be sentenced in December.